Olly Wood / Ninja Boy – 8th December 2011
Stealth and Assassination.
Not what you’d expect from a friendly neighbourhood ninja who performs good deeds in the bright of day. This is a blog about my scholarship entry which enabled me to come and study the art of… …communications!
Document a day of your life in a video format, upload it to youtube and either get as many views, as many votes, or just have the most creative idea. This was the competition, it could be a story about your best day ever, a rap about a bad day or a totally imaginary day.
At the time I was working for an agency and it was necessary to keep my identity hidden, I had to come up with something big enough to evolve, to advertise itself and become talked about. Something controversial and that stood for something. This was a chance and my only chance at going back to study, it was either win a scholarship or continue my job scamping dodgy retail ad’s, so it meant a lot.
My idea was to become a superhero, a ninja who performs good deeds that everybody is capable of and spreads this message, with the recent success of the movie ‘Kick Ass’ the superhero idea was also something to latch on to.
A full ninja suit was ordered from an online martial arts store and I began storyboarding my video, it needed to be simple and portray a message, as well as being local to pick up some followers and get the ball rolling. When the suit arrived I got my friend on the blower and we began filming.
Now that the film was made, It was time to bring the character to life and get local people to experience the ninja. Armed only with a facebook profile and a twitter account, photos began to appear of myself around town patrolling and performing good deeds. Wall posts and tweets went out encouraging people to interact by posting trouble hotspots and places they wanted to go on my patrol list.
Fake parking tickets were created (this was before the T-mobile ones) attempting to fool traffic wardens and save drivers getting a ticket with a friendly note reading: Naughty, naughty! Let’s hope I saved you a real parking ticket, careful where you park next time. I’m watching you! And of course a link to the facebook profile. http://en-gb.facebook.com/YourLocalNinja
It was now my aim to take this further, to re-invent neighbourhood watch because if I was to get any press attention I would have to have something solid to stand for. At that very moment the idea of ‘Ninja Watch’ was born. Using the hot spots suggested by fans, posters were made and stuck up warning people that they were in a ‘Ninja Watch Area’ and a link to the facebook page for directing traffic to the video.
The fans began to roll in and it was now time to contact the local press to interest them in a story, after all I now had a solid presence on the internet. The interview took place, and photos were taken, then the questions came… who are you? whats your day job? That was my cue to leg it.
Views were going up on the video and it was looking like things were evolving as planned, but nothing could have prepared me for what happened next!
It was Tuesday morning, the 26th April and occasionally before I had woken up to the odd tweet alert, but this day in particular it had gone bonkers. The Sun, The Daily Star and The Metro had all caught on and ran stories about a mysterious ninja superhero performing good deeds. The BBC wanted an interview for the South East news and for the radio, I could only oblige!
After this the ninja became a global sensation, Brazils second biggest paper featured a story and fans flooded in sending messages wishing me luck in the patrols, the Swedish metro and various other news sites round the world had began to advertise my campaign further and it was all free! Russell Howard, you know him? He even took the piss on his comedy show ‘Russell Howard’s Good News’. More ‘n’ more requests came in from the likes of ITV’s breakfast show, Channel 4, Loaded Magazine and many more. With all this the video had successfully gone viral.
Facebook later decided to delete my account due to the number of friends picked up and the fact that they had no real data on me, having signed up using a fake name and a bogus email address it was now necessary for them to know the real me. I had to contact them to convert my deleted account into a brand and continue the campaign.
I was lucky enough to be awarded a scholarship and have learnt something very valuable.
Connect with individuals rather than groups and make things personal.
My facebook profile was successfully converted and I still have fans out there who know nothing of the scholarship competition. Not only was this a huge amount of fun but something I began to put all my time and energy into, with this I’d like to ad something else learnt.
If you’re not having fun you’re not doing it right.
Have fun!
